The Great Thief

“Sorrowless, Sorrowless are you there? Just give me the equipment back, and I will help you fight Ruling Sword,” Unforgettable Maple said angrily.

“Heh,” Lu Li didn’t even pay attention to him.

Sorrowless didn’t pay attention to him either. The player who was leading Glory Capital and directing his troops to rush into the Stronghold had to be really naive to believe Unforgettable Maple’s words.

The battle had now transitioned into the Stronghold and the two sides were desperately fighting.

“Push them back,” Lu Li looked at the time and felt that he had to push them out now. As the endless stream of Glory Capital players rushed into the Stronghold, Lu Li realised they might not be able to hold on until the time ran out.

Of course, the Glory Capital players didn’t want to get pushed out, but Lu Li had the Ancient of Lore. Once it started moving, there was little the players could do to stop it. As they cleared out Glory Capital’s players, Lu Li also had a chance to take some equipment. The ground was covered in equipment, and everyone was grabbing as many as they could.

They had already agreed that as long as the equipment didn’t belong to someone on their own side, they were allowed to keep any equipment that they picked up. This meant that the players aiding Ruling Sword were picking up equipment like crazy.

“Stop picking up equipment and get ready to meet the enemies. Make sure to meet them at the entrance,” Lu Li yelled as he continued to pick up equipment.

“They are blocking the gap,” Unforgettable Maple was also yelling at the same time. These two men were saying these things, but their true intentions were betrayed by the fact that they were still picking up equipment.

Although there were many drops, most of them were rubbish. Yet the players were still picking up the equipment as they were afraid that their peers would have more than them. But it was even more shameless for the leaders to be doing something like that as well.

Fortunately, the aiding players weren’t just good at picking up equipment, but also at defence. After all, it wasn’t in their interests to let Glory Capital take the stronghold as well. If the Stronghold fell, then all the discounts that Lu Li promised wouldn’t mean anything.

Despite their defensive strength, they were still bound to lose some equipment. But if they won the Stronghold war, the spoils should be enough to recover their losses.

If you were lucky, you could even earn some money. For someone like Unforgettable Maple who had lost some of his armour, the Legendary weapon that he picked up could pay for the equipment that he lost.

Of course, Sorrowless wasn’t willing to accept defeat either. So, the longer the fight was drawn out, the more vicious the fighting got.

If they didn’t have the Ancient of Lore, the Stronghold probably would have been taken. If Lu Li hadn’t asked for help, and just relied on Ruling Sword’s defensive strength, they probably wouldn’t have survived either.

Sorrowless had already overestimated Ruling Sword’s strength, but he had no idea that Lu Li would ask for help and invite over 20 professional players.

In the end, Glory Capital still couldn’t capture the Stronghold.

Glory Capital had come in with 80 players, half of whom were selected from a pool of 200 players. This greatly affected their offensive strength.

As this fight came to an end, the other Stronghold battles had naturally also ended.

Lu Li first looked to find out what happened to the new Grey Valley Stronghold. He wasn’t worried about the Black Sea Coast Stronghold at all, as he had put Wandering in charge with a strong defensive line up, so there was no doubt that they could have held it.

In the place where it listed the new owners of the new Grey Valley Stronghold, Grand Hegemony was written.

Great!

Lu Li couldn’t help but clap his hands in joy. Now that the new Stronghold was held by Grand Hegemony, the entire Grey Valley was under his sphere of influence.

Although Lu Li wasn’t too charismatic, as long as he and Ruling Sword stood strong, he had no reason to believe that Grand Hegemony would betray them. Even if Grand Hegemony backed out from the deal, Lu Li had the strength to teach them a lesson at any time.

The joint forces of Drizzle Court and Peerless City had defeated Gale Legion, so they won Gale Legion’s Stronghold on the Stonetalon Mountains.

Fortunately, Gale Legion had held onto their Desolace Stronghold. Otherwise, the feeling of losing both Strongholds would have been crushing. Right now, Glory Capital had Stranglethorn Vale, Drizzle Court had Western Wilderness, Seventh Heaven had Tanaris, Blood Red War Flag had Hillsbrad Hills and Wings of Dawn had Thousand Needles. None of those Strongholds had changed. The only other change was in the Un’Goro Crater, where Gangnam Royals were not strong enough to defend it, so it was taken over by Blood Red War Flag.

This meant that Blood Red War Flag had successfully become a club that owned two Strongholds. However, Blood Red War Flag didn’t manage the capture of the new Stronghold in Hillsbrad Hills. Instead, the new owners were Glory Capital.

Glory Capital had started with two Strongholds and got another one. But this result was far from what Sorrowless had intended when he deployed his troops. According to the intention of his deployment, they should have acquired all of Grey Valley, and half of Hillsbrad Hills. In addition to their original Strongholds, it would have left them with six total Strongholds. But since Gale Legion lost one of their Strongholds, the whole operation turned out to be a loss overall.

This was the nature of Stronghold Wars, there were bound to be some happy people and some who met a less desirable fate.

Two weeks later, there was another round of the Stronghold War. But this time, there were no new Strongholds, just another modification to the Stronghold Wars.

The changes affected the player selection process. For the attacking party, the 40 players were now selected from a pool of 100 players instead of 200. This meant that the attacking side’s strength would be more pronounced as they had a higher concentration of stronger players. The other change removed the Stronghold from the land. The Stronghold could now be stored by the club, so even if the battle was lost the club’s Stronghold still existed. Once they successfully conquered a new piece of land, they could re-establish the same Stronghold in that new location.

This was good news for both the offensive and defensive parties. The offensive party now felt more confidence in their attacks, and the stakes were lower for the defending party.

In this week’s Stronghold War, Lu Li decided to purely focus on defence.

This time, they defended quite easily as Glory Capital’s energy had been spent on attacking Azure Guard instead of Ruling Sword.

Azure Guard had previously taken Stranglethorn Vale from them, but Sorrowless was busy dealing with Lu Li so he couldn’t deal with them. He didn’t even look in their direction until then because he felt like he could take back the Stronghold at any time.

This much was true. Azure Guard didn’t have the defensive strength of Ruling Sword. Although they had also hired some help, they were still defeated by Glory Capital’s strong attack.

The other Strongholds didn’t change that much.

There was one, if it could be considered a change, where Blood Red War Flag and Seventh Heaven privately exchanged the Un’Goro Crater and Tanaris.

Two weeks later, the last Stronghold War was about to begin. This was just before level 70 was unlocked and it also released two new maps – The Hinterlands and the Arathi Highlands. Additional Strongholds were also released on the existing maps of Western Wilderness and Tanaris.

With four Strongholds being released at once, the officials obviously thought that the players didn’t have enough to do.